Kernel Log: more details on the kernel.org hack

Prague was the venue for a number of Linux kernel and kernel related conferences held in late October. These included this year's Kernel Summit, at which just shy of a hundred kernel developers came together to share their experiences at the invitation only event. Delegates included Linus Torvalds, Andrew Morton, Greg Kroah-Hartman and many more key kernel developers.

LWN.net has, as ever, produced articles summarising the more significant discussions. The event revealed some of the details of the kernel.org hack. In late August, H. Peter Anvin, an experienced kernel developer also known for his work in areas such as the bootloader collection Isolinux, discovered that his private server had been hacked. On investigating further, he discovered that kernel.org was also affected. The attack was part of a credential-stealing network which had been operating for several years. All evidence suggested that kernel.org was not a specific target, but had just happened to fall victim to the attackers. The attackers proceeded silently, did not use the computer for activities such as spamming and did not modify any of the data stored on the server.